1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to conventional and skirted style spinning reels, and more particularly, relates to a unique free-floating drag mechanism that is mounted in the rear of the housing of the fishing reels.
2. Background of the Prior Art
It is well known in the prior art to utilize drag mechanisms mounted in the spool of conventional spinning reels and skirted style spinning reels. This drag mechanism has many undesirable characteristics such as nonlinear drag response, difficult to adjust when playing a fish on the end of a fishing rod and reel, subject to loosening and thereby losing the spool during fishing, and many more. Some years ago a fishing reel was produced in the marketplace that had a drag system located at the rear of the reel rather than incorporated in the spool but it was found that this mechanism had certain drawbacks in that it was not free-floating and it did not fit coaxially on the main shaft. As a consequence thereof it did not have a linear spring response which means that a fisherman when tightening the drag would not know how much drag he would increase as he turned the drag adjustment knob. Thus, the prior art has failed to teach how to utilize a free-floating drag mechanism mounted in the rear of a reel housing whereby it would have a linear spring response.